July 22, 2015

My second featured story is ‘Soul Deep’. You can read my deep thinky thoughts on that story below. You can also admire the brand new artwork Jacci has done for the story in the banner :-).

Soul Deep

Of all the stories I’ve written, there is one that still gets more feedback than most, even after several years, and that’s Soul Deep.

 

I didn’t expect it to be such a favourite, frankly! I thought people would think I was barmy to try and forge the notion of ‘daemons’ from Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy onto the NCIS characters! It doesn’t seem a natural pairing, but there is something irresistibly compelling about such a challenge, and I was up for it!

 

I first had the idea while driving back from my godson’s christening, and thinking about children’s books and what an enduring place they hold in our hearts. I had enjoyed Pullman’s books, although I was never in love with them. I thought the movie – The Golden Compass – was very well done, and it was delightful to see the daemons coming to life by the magic of CGI.

 

I’m sure everyone who has read the books or watched the movie immediately wonders what their own daemon would be. The notion of spirit animals isn’t exclusive to Pullman, of course, but he did something very interesting with it in making them a walking, talking, living embodiment of a person’s soul.

 

I transplanted Pullman’s notion of daemons in their entirety, and the rules he established for them: That it’s agonizing if someone other than you touches your daemon, that children’s daemons shift form and only become settled when they reach maturity, and that it’s a horrifying thing to be separated from your daemon, or to see someone without a daemon.

 

It worked as a children’s novel, but I found writing it raised all kinds of awkward questions about the nature of daemons as established in his universe. For example, daemons are corporeal, so how does one take a horde of daemons on trains and in cars and airplanes? And separation from your daemon hurts, but how can you keep your daemon by you at all times – could they be locked away from you for long periods of time? Pullman didn’t answer these questions, but I thought the idea of being forcibly kept away from your daemon was an interesting one, and built a large part of the plot around it.

 

I decided to keep the world of NCIS, and not the world(s) depicted in Pullman’s novels, and simply graft the daemons on, treating the concept of an external soul animal as completely normal within that world. I had a few people tell me that at first they found the concept quite hard to get their heads around, but once they did they found the story very enjoyable.

 

I’d like to say I slaved over choosing the daemons for each NCIS character, and that it took me hours of painstaking researching, but I’d be lying! Most of them simply came to me, and some were entirely obvious such as Gibbs and his wolf daemon, the lovely Tessa. I’m not sure if I started the whole Gibbs-and-wolves thing or not, but between Soul Deep and Two Wolves, I certainly perpetuated it! If Gibbs had a soul animal it would be a wolf, and you couldn’t convince me otherwise!

 

Tony posed more of a dilemma. I knew his daemon was called Shanti – that name just came to me and felt right. I also had an image of this huge, gorgeous lioness. Then the plot started to form, of Shanti finding ways to hide her true nature, because Tony is always doing that, too. It was lovely to write Shanti in all her child-like forms before she settles, and I chose those as representing aspects of Tony’s personality, too. I think if Shanti hadn’t been a lioness she would have been the golden retriever whose form she sometimes took, but that might be because of my fondness for one of my other stories, Puppy Love!

 

I didn’t agonise over Ducky’s daemon, either – Morag had to be an owl, just as Abby had to have a capuchin monkey and Tim had to have a squirrel. Even Kate’s daemon, Mo the goat, was easy! The daemons seemed natural to me, although I’m sure someone else could write the NCIS characters with completely different daemons and for them also to seem wonderful and true. Mike Franks’s beat-up old mongrel, Colonel Ryan’s eagle, and Jackson Gibbs’s clucking hen all seemed to spring out of some essential truth of the characters. I knew I wanted Ziva’s daemon to be hidden, and therefore a source of fascination for nosy Tony. I imagined Levi being a rather beautiful spider, perhaps with thick dark fur and orange eyes.

 

Once I’d settled on the daemons I gave them more thought – worrying about whether I’d made the right choices, and looking up their characteristics online, but they still felt right and true, so I stuck with them.

 

One of the hardest parts of writing the story was how to whizz through several years of NCIS history with the added slant of daemons being involved. I was much more confident dealing with the main plot I had in mind than in covering events like Tony getting the plague, and Kate’s death. I had to make some decisions as to what the high points of the NCIS canon were in terms of this AU, but I think I pulled it off in the end.

 

Much to my relief, Soul Deep was very well received when I posted it, so it was a risk that paid off. I also received the most wonderful fan art for it! The concept of the NCIS characters having daemons inspired a huge amount of creativity. You can view the artwork in the Soul Deep art gallery at the bottom of its title page.

 

So, that’s the story behind Soul Deep. In honour of it being featured, I’ve devised a new poll, which you can find on the right sidebar. So, if you had one of the daemons from the Soul Deep universe, which one would it be…?    

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Lidil

I have lost count of how many times I’ve read this story. It always affects me the same way. It’s about love. Finding it and accepting it. And being glad for it.

Ever since I first read “His Dark Materials” by Philip Pullman I’ve been fascinated of his ‘verse and the daemons. Your interpretation and transfer into NCIS is beautifully done.

Jariyan

Soul Deep Art Gallery

 

 

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